


Christianna

by LunaCatriona



Category: Holby City
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 12:16:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16429238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaCatriona/pseuds/LunaCatriona
Summary: “We tend to think of places as haunted. Houses, villages, buildings, rooms, graveyards, even forests and fields. Nobody ever seems to think it’s the person who’s haunted...”Sometimes, a patient gets under Serena's skin. This time, the patient has chilled her very bones.





	Christianna

**Author's Note:**

> Since it's so close to Halloween...

** NOW: SERENA **

“We tend to think of places as haunted. Houses, villages, buildings, rooms, graveyards, even forests and fields. Nobody ever seems to think it’s the person who’s haunted. The more I think about it, the more I see that’s rather short-sighted of us. After all, we never hear of a ghost alone. They’re always found by a person, aren’t they? Otherwise, we wouldn’t know about them.”

“You’ve never struck me as the kind of woman who believes in ghosts.”

“I wasn’t. Until I was.”

That wasn’t something to which Serena Campbell wanted to confess. She had never known herself to be so susceptible to myths and stories and folklore. She was a doctor. Everything she knew was rooted in the real world, where everything could be explained by the laws of nature and science. And, being surrounded by people just like her, none of them believed her. They all thought her mental health was in jeopardy, that she’d returned to the level of madness Elinor’s death had pushed her to.

But it wasn’t that. She knew what deteriorating mental health felt like. It wasn’t this. And yet here she was, being questioned by her colleague. She had only two colleagues who knew what it was to lose a child. One of them had struggled with his mental state since, and so it was him she chose to tell. Though she didn’t believe she was going mad, she had to be sure. She needed someone to tell her it wasn’t her mind playing tricks on her.

“When did this start?”

“About a month ago.”

“And Bernie?”

“Still in Nairobi. She doesn’t believe me. She thinks it’s because Elinor was the same age when she died, and it’s throwing up stuff in my head. But if that was true, I’d see Elinor, not Christianna.”

Henrik Hanssen leaned forwards slightly in his chair. “I believe you.”

“You do?”

“I do.”

“I don’t know how to make her stop.”

“Do what she asked you to.”

“I’ve tried. It’s impossible.”

“I’ll try and help.”

“Why?”

He hesitated before he eventually said, “It’s the right thing to do. For both you and Christianna.”

Serena wasn’t quite sure he was being honest with her, but she also knew part of his motivation was always to do what was right, even, and perhaps especially, when it was not what was easy.

* * *

** THEN: SERENA **

The morning had been hectic. There had been a pile-up on the ring road, and a good percentage of the casualties had ended up on AAU. So when a young woman, her face pale and her eyes dark, was admitted, she was placed in the queue behind those who had to go for surgery there and then. She never once complained. Indeed, when Serena first went to assess her, with Donna at her side, she said, “I can wait. Them folk are in a worse way than me.” She was barely awake, like she had been dozing while she waited.

Taken aback, Serena replied, “We can take care of everyone, don’t worry.”

She held out a trembling hand. “Christianna,” she said.

How odd, that a girl in her early twenties should introduce herself so formally when she was unwell. Nonetheless, Serena shook her hand; it was clammy. “Serena Campbell. This is Nurse Jackson,” she said. “What seems to be the problem?”

“I thought it was just a really bad bug but now I’ve got this rash. Mum always told me to go to the hospital if I see it,” she explained. She lifted her t-shirt and revealed a blotchy rash; Serena’s first thought was not a good one. “And I’ve got a really bad headache. Especially with these big lights.”

Donna finished taking Christianna’s temperature. “Thirty-nine point six,” she murmured to Serena, who knew that the last thing they needed to do was alarm Christianna.

“Do you have a second name?”

“Yes. Everybody does, don’t they?”

“Can you tell me what it is?”

“I’m not sure if it’s Lindsay or Stewart. Or it might be Williamson. My mum had me, then married a Stewart. He died, and she married a Williamson. I don’t know whose name I’ve got. Or maybe I’m like Prince Philip and I actually don’t have one,” Christianna joked with a weak grin.

“Nobody told you?”

“I was always just Christianna. A name like that, nobody needs your last name,” she shrugged.

“Okay,” Serena sighed; it was a rather bizarre way to live, but Christianna didn’t seem very bothered by it. “Can you tell me your date of birth?”

“My auntie says it’s the fifth of April but my granny always said it’s the eighth of January. I’m twenty-two now, either way.”

Serena was beginning to get the impression that she would find little to nothing in the way of medical records for Christianna. If she didn’t seem otherwise perfectly able in the head, Serena would have thought the girl had lost either her memory or her mind. “I’ll be back in a moment,” she said.

She returned to the nurses’ station. “Nurse Jackson,” she said. “Christianna…whatever her last name might be. See if you can find her records, would you, please? I’m not optimistic that she’s got any at all, so get as much of a history as you can from her.”

“But you’re thinking what I’m thinking, right?” Donna asked.

“Yes. But we can’t go and treat her without having some sort of background information.”

Donna nodded and sat down at the computer.

As Serena passed Christianna to reach her next patient, she watched her carefully. There was something about this one. Serena could almost sense that she was not going to thrive as long as those around her. But she hastily reminded herself that such an instinct was baseless. There was no evidence to suggest that. No matter how hard she shook herself, the thought never left her, even as she treated the rest of her patients. Even in theatre, performing a complex procedure, her mind wandered back to the girl without a surname.

“Did you find anything on Christianna?” Serena asked Donna in theatre.

“Not on the system,” Donna sighed. “But she was able to tell me she’s got three sisters and a brother, she’s allergic to penicillin, and she doesn’t have an address.”

“Homeless?”

“I don’t think so. She seems more like a nomad. She didn’t come out and say it but I think she’s a gypsy.”

“A Traveller,” Serena corrected Donna, who looked up at her in surprise. “They don’t like being called gypsies, unless they say it themselves.”

“Noted,” nodded Donna. “But yeah. She doesn’t know where the rest of her family is, either. She’s on her own. Xavier’s put her on antibiotics.”

“Let’s hope it works.”

* * *

** NOW: SERENA **

It was with an internal groan that Serena opened the front door to her house. The first thing she did was turn on the lights, even before she took off her coat or shoes; darkness was no longer safe. Of course, she was well aware that the odds of her coming to any harm were very slim. It was that tiny shard of a chance that maybe she might be in danger that drove her to take precautions.

She went through to her kitchen and placed her bag on the table. Nervous as she’d been all day about telling Henrik the truth, she had skipped every meal, and now she was starving. Unable to wait until she could cook a full meal, she buttered a slice of bread and ate that for the time being.

Serena almost called Bernie, but decided against it. Though Bernie meant well, and no doubt honestly was doing what she believed was the right thing by her partner, her input only made Serena second guess herself. It made her wonder if she really was going mad.

With the lights on, Serena was almost able to forget the sense of foreboding that never left her these days. She was able to pour herself a glass of wine and set about figuring out what she wanted to make for dinner. Deciding on a vegetable curry, she turned the radio on and began to chop onions, all the while with a spoon in her mouth to prevent her eyes watering so badly that she couldn’t see.

“ _Funny how quick the milk turns sour, isn’t it, isn’t it?_ ” she sang along with the radio. “ _Your face has been lookin’ like that for hours, hasn’t it, hasn’t it? Promises, promises, turn to dust, weddin’ bells just turn to rust, trust into mistrust._ ”

Funny, how that song always reminded her of Edward. Even the man’s part of it was exactly what Edward always came away with – what _he_ needed, what _he_ doubted, and then that _he_ had made his mind up. It was infuriating. “ _Need a little room for your big head, don’t you, don’t you?_ ” she sang along, chopping carrots now. “ _Need a little space for a-_ ”

_BANG._

Serena jumped halfway out of her skin; with a pop and the shattering of glass, it all went silent and dark. A sharp pain pulsed through the palm of Serena’s hand. She put the knife down on the chopping board and kept her hand elevated, for she was fairly sure it was bleeding. “Not again! That’s a new lightbulb,” she grumbled.

She turned to head for the hallway sideboard for a torch, but startled backwards into the countertop. There stood Christianna, as clear as day, perfectly visible in the surreal darkness of the room. Her skin white, marred by dark blotches, she seemed to glow, if only she would light the space around her. If anything, she seemed to suck the light out of the air, leaving the room like it was drowning in soot.

“Please don’t,” Serena said wearily. “Not tonight.”

Tears fell down Christianna’s face but she made no noise. She never did make a noise – at least when Serena could see her. But the impenetrable darkness and its spectre froze Serena to the spot in which she stood. Christianna paralysed her. There was no chance of flight and she could not fight, so all she could do was breathe. Or try to breathe; it didn’t come easily.

There was no knowing how long she had to stand there, staring into Christianna’s weeping face. Her eyes were so dark. Serena was never sure if they had been that colour in life, or if they had been a lighter shade of brown. Perhaps it was the pallor of her skin that darkened her eyes. Perhaps it was death itself.

The shrill ringing of her mobile phone broke the silence but not the darkness. Serena could not move to answer it, even though it was mere feet away from her, sitting on the counter.

Suddenly the vines that held her feet to the ground retreated and the strings that bound her limbs to paralysis loosened. She dragged in a harsh, rattling breath and dived towards her phone.

Christianna vanished.

“Hello?” she answered.

“Hey,” Bernie Wolfe said. “How are you?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Serena lied.

“You sure? You don’t sound it.”

“You called just as the lightbulb in the kitchen blew. Gave me a fright,” she laughed nervously. “How’s things with the trauma centre?”

“Yeah, we’re doing well. How’s AAU?”

“Same old,” Serena replied.

“I get my annual leave next week, so I’m going to come home for a little while and see you,” Bernie said. “I meant to tell you the other day but I forgot. You were so upset, it totally slipped my mind.”

Serena resisted the urge to tell Bernie that she hadn’t been upset. She had been scared because a dead girl had been standing on the stairs. It wasn’t something Bernie seemed able to accept; she wanted what she felt was a sensible reason, and it always led to Serena having to reassure her that she wasn’t losing herself.

“Oh, great,” Serena said brightly. “When do you fly in?”

“Wednesday morning.” In the background of the call, Serena could hear someone call out to Bernie. “Listen, I’d better go. Duty calls. But I’ll see you on Wednesday. I love you.”

“Love you too,” mumbled Serena.

They hung up. Serena sighed and used the light of her phone to get to the kitchen door; she remembered she had not closed it, for she wanted to let in all the light she could. It must have been that slamming shut that made such an immense clatter. She went into the cupboard under the stairs and flicked the breaker switch, and all the lights came back on, except the kitchen light. This was why she had a stock of lightbulbs now. They kept bursting. At first she thought it was the house’s wiring causing it – in fact, she had convinced herself that it was.

That was, until Christianna started to show herself. There was no way the house could be to blame for that.


End file.
